Embodiments of the invention relate to a method of forming a film pattern and a method of manufacturing a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) array substrate.
In these years, the demand for electronic products has been rapidly increasing. Semiconductor manufacture technology plays a great role to promote the development of various electronic products. For example, chips and display screens employed in the electronic products such as mobile, computer, media player, game machine and the like are all produced by means of the semiconductor manufacture technology. Typically, the semiconductor manufacture technology employs film deposition process and patterning process to form three dimensional devices such as field effect transistor, diode, memory, thin film transistor and the like on a substrate.
Hereinafter, the conventional manufacture process employed in the semiconductor manufacture technology will be described by taking thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) array substrate as an example. Firstly, a gate metal film is deposited on a glass substrate by a sputtering method, and a gate line and a gate electrode of the thin film transistor are formed by a photolithography process performed with an exposure machine and an etching process performed with an etching machine; next, a gate insulating film, a semiconductor film and a doped semiconductor film are sequentially deposited by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method, and an active layer of the thin film transistor is formed by a photolithography process performed with an exposure machine and an etching process performed with an etching machine; next, a source/drain metal film is deposited by a sputtering method, and a data line, a source electrode and a drain electrode of the thin film transistor are formed by a photolithography process performed with an exposure machine and an etching process performed with an etching machine; then, a passivation film is deposited by a PECVD method, and a via hole in the passivation layer is formed by a photolithography process performed with an exposure machine and an etching process performed with an etching machine; and finally, a transparent conductive film is deposited by a sputtering method, and a pixel electrode is formed by a photolithography process performed with an exposure machine and an etching process performed with an etching machine. In the above photolithography processes and etching processes, the film that has been deposited and is to be patterned is applied with a photoresist layer thereon and placed into an exposure machine, and a mask plate with a certain pattern is installed on the exposure machine so that only a portion of incident light is irradiated on the photoresist layer through the mask plate, i.e., the photoresist layer is exposed. Then, a photoresist pattern, which has the same pattern as that of the mask plate, is formed by developing. Finally, the film unprotected by the photoresist pattern is etched away by a dry etching method or a wet etching method with an etching machine, so that a film pattern is formed. The above process is performed many times to manufacture a semiconductor device. Typically, 20-40 mask plates are needed to manufacture a chip, that is, the above process is repeatedly performed for 20-40 times. As to the manufacture of the TFT-LCD array substrate, 3-6 mask plates are needed.
Apparatuses for film deposition and patterning generally comprise a film coating machine (such as a PECVD machine and a sputtering machine), an exposure machine, an etching machine (such as a wet etching machine and a dry etching machine) and the like. These apparatuses are expensive, and many kinds of apparatuses are necessarily employed in order to form a single structural layer. Therefore, the manufacture cost in the conventional manufacture process is high. In addition, the conventional manufacture process further has the disadvantages, such as long production period, high cross-contamination risk and low yield.
Recently, an inkjet print technology is employed to manufacture a color filter substrate of liquid crystal display. Since the structure and the employed materials of a TFT-LCD array substrate are different from those of a color filter substrate, the TFT-LCD array substrate is still manufactured by the conventional photolithography process and the etching process. Therefore, the manufacture process of the TFT-LCD array substrate still has the disadvantages of expensive apparatuses, high manufacture cost, long production period and low yield.